The Clockwork Universe is the story of a band of men who lived in a world of dirt and disease but pictured a universe that ran like a perfect machine. A meld of history and science, this book is a group portrait of some of the greatest minds who ever lived as they wrestled with natures most sweeping mysteries. The answers they uncovered still hold the key to how we understand the world.

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The Clockwork Universe is the story of a band of men who lived in a world of dirt and disease but pictured a universe that ran like a perfect machine. A meld of history and science, this book is a group portrait of some of the greatest minds who ever lived as they wrestled with natures most sweeping mysteries. The answers they uncovered still hold the key to how we understand the world.

At the end of the 17th century, an age of religious wars, plague, and the Great Fire of London when most people saw the world as falling apart, these earliest scientists saw a world of perfect order. They declared that, chaotic as it looked, the universe was in fact as intricate and perfectly regulated as a clock. This was the tail end of Shakespeare's century, when the natural and the supernatural still twined around each other. Disease was a punishment ordained by God, astronomy had not yet broken free from astrology, and the sky was filled with omens. It was a time when little was known and everything was new. These brilliant, ambitious, curious men believed in angels, alchemy, and the devil, and they also believed that the universe followed precise, mathematical laws, a contradiction that tormented them and changed the course of history. The Clockwork Universe is the fascinating and compelling story of the bewildered geniuses of the Royal Society, the men who made the modern world.

I hesitated to buy this one after reading the reviews, so I felt obliged to offer a counter opinion. I thought the book excellent and the narration quite tolerable. While the author centers on the great calculus debate between Newton and Leibniz and tosses in a lot of anecdotal history, the book also functions as a very good primer on the foundations of modern science, treating it as the elaboration and application of mathematics to physical phenomena. The crucial step represented by a mathematics of motion is a central theme. His descriptions of the calculus and the weird conceptual innovation Newton called ???gravity??? are really very good and surprisingly clear in narration without any visual aids. He also paints a vivid picture of the physical and metaphysical worlds of the 17th century, including a welcome insistence on the essential role of religious faith, even mysticism, in the thinking of the early modern scientists. As to the narration, I can see why some people might find it slightly irritating. The reader has a plumy voice that dips into avuncular chuckles at points of irony, which can be a bit annoying. But I found the pace and tone very good for comprehension overall. The lives of Newton and Leibniz make a marvelous story, and unless you are already familiar with them you will probably enjoy this book.

Featuring Kepler, Galileo, Newton, and Leibniz, the author explores the scientific golden age of the seventeenth century. The characters are lively, the science is fascinating, and the subjects diverse: geometry, calculus, physics, optics, and more. An absorbing read for anyone interested in the hard sciences and curious about their development.

I found this book to be quite entertaining. I find the people behind the science and the politics to be very interesting. Sklar's narration fit the tone of the book and kept me engaged through some of the more soap opera parts whilst also making the science aspects interesting. A very good read to see a bit behind the major breakthroughs of the science we take for granted today.

This book is a great introduction to so many of history's most interesting genius's. The major characters are Newton and Leibniz but the author manages to familiarize the reader with a near exhaustive list of scientific greats from throughout history. Don't worry about hearing too much about stuffy intellectual types, these guys are far from boring. I didn't agree with all of the authors perspectives on these great men and the times in which they lived but all and all this is a solid and very informative book about a fascinating and turbulent time in history. The author covers a vast amount of material yet manages not to short change the subject. A light and fun history that manages to convey a large amount of information and leave the reader wanting more. Leaves much of the life, blood, controversies, feuds, and other interesting bits in. Makes you want to read biographies of just about everyone mentioned. The narrator is fantastic.

This book is full of fascinating history and science. It reads more as a story rather than an historical reference, though. But having a hard copy version would be useful to refer back to for the sheer density of information. The author presents the material in a logical, well-organized manner with an entertaining style. The narrator, however, tended toward monotony now and again. Still, his diction was clear and the recording lacked any true quirky irritations.

This title is extremely entertaining. It covers and links historical figures and their achievements well but above all it’s delivered in an entertaining and often amusing way. Highly recommended to anyone even remotely interested in historical events and discoveries.

The review would not be complete however without mentioning the quality of narration. Alan Sklar has become an instant favourite with me and I’ll be searching out other titles he’s worked on based on this book alone.

I'm afraid the narrator, whose voice is really fantastic, reads 'down' to the listener. I loved Dolnick's text, but Sklar made me feel as if I were sitting on the floor in a circle of third-graders. His tone diminishes the material. If you have the option, buy the hard copy.

Don't expect a history of Isaac Newton or the Royal Society. While you may find a lot of history, what you will hear is how people thought and understood the world in Newton and other great British and European thinkers' time. It helps you to understand the change in understanding our world. I think Edward Dolnick did a pretty good job in giving his listeners an understanding of the world from which the modern world sprang. Alan Skar also does a fair job of interepretative reading. I didn't find any reading down. I do think however Dolnick wrote as if he has futher evolved in his thinking than some other people, which could give certain people offence. All in all a good book but not really my cup of tea... or coffee.

This book captures the mindsets of great men and their contemporaries in a way that makes them believably human, rather than names thrown around in a science textbook. We understand their quirks, their theories and how they viewed the world.

Any additional comments?

As a parting thought about the book, I have a question about why people today are separating science from religion even though it's clear some of the greatest scientists in history did their research with the intention of understanding God's universe better.

I am interested in this period in history and this book provided lots of interesting details. However, at times it seemed to jump about a bit and I was not so comfortable with this lack of a strong flowing narrative

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